Cable engines, also called cable tensioners, are used for moving or conveying elongated circular elements, such as land cables, submarine cables, or offshore pipes.
The cable engines allow the cable or pipes to be hauled in at a controlled rate and are used for transportation between the manufacturing process, the storage process, and the layout of the cables or pipes. Often, it is necessary to use different sizes of cable engines having different pulling force for the different steps. For instance, it may be necessary to use one type of cable engine for arranging the cables on large spools, and second type of cable engine to lay out the cables in for instance a seabed. Further, existing cable engines have the disadvantage that they can only be arranged in a fixed configuration for linear conveying of the cable or pipe. This means that several different sizes of cable engines may have to be used in for instance a setup on a cable-laying ship, such as a number of first cable engines for conveying the cable in a linear fashion, and a number of second cable engines for conveying the cable in a curve, e.g. passing an obstacle, such as the ship railing.
MGR Fluid Power has developed a modular cable engine system, capable of driving up to three wheel sets from one hydraulic system. Drive wheel modules may be bolted together in the system. However, the system is inflexible and difficult to customise the specific needs, e.g. to convey cable or pipes along a curve or to function as a stand-alone.
Accordingly, there is a need for a flexible cable engine solution that can be customised and modified to the specific need. It is an object of the invention to obtain a cable engine device, which overcome or ameliorate at least one of the disadvantages of the prior art or which provides a useful alternative.